What an obituary actually has to do
An obituary does three jobs at once, and most of the difficulty comes from trying to do them in the wrong order. It announces a death to people who may not have heard. It tells them where to be and when. And somewhere in the middle, it says who this person was.
The first two are administrative. Get them down first — they are the parts with deadlines attached, and they are the parts a stranger reading the paper needs. The third part is the one people agonise over, and it is also the part that gets easier once the scaffolding is standing.
Funeral homes usually want a draft within 24 to 48 hours, because the newspaper needs it a day or two before the service. That is a brutal deadline for anyone who has just lost someone. It is also why the standard structure below exists: it is not a creative form, it is a checklist that the funeral industry, newspapers, and readers have all silently agreed on.
The standard order, and why it is that order
Every obituary you have ever read runs roughly the same way, because it is sorted by what a reader needs soonest:
- Announcement — name, age, town, date of death.
- Life — born, raised, schooled, worked, married.
- Character — what they loved and what they were like.
- Family — who died before them, who survives them.
- Services — visitation, funeral, burial.
- Donations — where to send flowers or money instead.
You can move things around. But if you are stuck, do not — the order above is a solved problem, and this is not the week to redesign it.
Writing it, step by step
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Collect facts before you write a sentence
Open a note and dump every name, date, and place you will need: full legal name including maiden name, birth date, death date, town, employers, schools, church, and the full survivor list with spellings. Half of obituary writing is data entry, and mixing it with the writing is what makes both take twice as long.
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Write the opening line first, and keep it factual
The first sentence carries the announcement. It is the one line every reader reads, and the one line that must be exactly right.
Margaret Ellen "Peggy" Doyle, 84, of Dayton, Ohio, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, August 4, 2026.
Name, age, town, date. Nothing else belongs in this sentence.
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Decide what to say about the cause — including nothing
You are under no obligation to name a cause of death, and most families do not. "After a long illness" and "unexpectedly" are complete answers. If a death was by suicide or overdose and the family wishes to say so, many now write "died of an overdose" plainly, and some add a line pointing readers to help; that is a family decision, not a rule.
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Cover the life in one tight paragraph
Born where, to whom, schooled where, worked at what and for how long, married whom and when, served where. Numbers do real work here: "worked 31 years at the same plant" tells a reader more about a person than any adjective will.
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Then get specific, because specific is what people remember
This is the paragraph that separates an obituary from a form. "She was kind and loving" describes a stranger. "She kept a running list of everyone's birthdays on the inside of a kitchen cabinet door" describes her.
Ask family for the small, slightly odd things: the phrase they always said, the thing they always brought, the team they never forgave. A single concrete detail is worth a paragraph of praise.
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Build the survivor list carefully — then have it checked
The convention is closest relatives first: spouse, children (with their spouses in parentheses), grandchildren, great-grandchildren, then siblings. Long-term partners, stepchildren, and in-laws are named in plenty of modern obituaries, and leaving someone out is the single most common thing families end up arguing about afterward.
…survived by her daughter Anne (Michael) Reyes of Columbus…
Send this paragraph to two other relatives before it goes anywhere near a newspaper.
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Give service details a reader can act on
Day, date, time, venue, and town — every one of them, even when it feels repetitive. If services are private, say "Services will be private" rather than leaving a silence people will phone about.
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Read it aloud, then have someone else proofread it
Reading aloud catches the clumsy sentences. Someone else catches the wrong middle initial. Verify every date, the spelling of every single name, and the address of every venue. An obituary is permanent in a way that almost nothing else you write is — newspapers charge to run corrections, and online archives often keep the original anyway.
How long should it be?
A death notice runs 50 to 100 words and states the bare facts. A standard newspaper obituary runs 200 to 400. A full tribute for a funeral home page or memorial website can run 500 to 800, because the space is free there. Since papers bill by the line, length is a budget decision as much as an editorial one — a common approach is to run the short version in print and post the long version online, then link to it.
Mistakes that are expensive or painful
- Publishing a home address — obituaries are read by burglars who know the family will be at a funeral at a stated time. Name the funeral home, not the house.
- Missing a survivor. Read the list to someone who will notice.
- Wrong dates or misspelled names. Corrections cost money and rarely erase the original.
- Settling scores. An obituary is public and permanent, and grief passes long before the archive does.
- Approving it alone at 2 a.m. Sleep on it if the deadline allows even a few hours.
Three lengths, same person
The same fictional life, written three ways. Use whichever shape fits your budget and your paper's word limit.
Death notice · 58 words
Margaret Ellen "Peggy" Doyle, 84, of Dayton, Ohio, died August 4, 2026. She is survived by her daughter Anne Reyes, her son David Doyle, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Visitation will be Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. at Gebhart Funeral Home. A funeral Mass will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at St. Anthony Catholic Church.
Standard obituary · 172 words
Margaret Ellen "Peggy" Doyle, 84, of Dayton, Ohio, passed away peacefully on August 4, 2026, surrounded by her family.
Peggy was born June 2, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to the late Thomas and Rose Kowalski. She graduated from Central High School and worked for 31 years as a surgical nurse at Miami Valley Hospital. In 1963 she married Robert Doyle, and together they raised two children in the same house on Salem Avenue for fifty years.
She was known for her stubbornness, her pie crust, and a laugh that carried down the block. She loved the Sunday crossword, the Reds, and every stray cat on the street.
She was preceded in death by her husband Robert and her brother James. She is survived by her daughter Anne (Michael) Reyes of Columbus; her son David Doyle of Dayton; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Visitation will be Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. at Gebhart Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Alzheimer's Association.
The specific detail
Compare two sentences about the same woman:
"She was a devoted mother who was loved by all who knew her."
"She kept every birthday in the family written on the inside of a kitchen cabinet door, in pencil, going back to 1968."
The first could be anyone. The second could only be her. When you are stuck, stop reaching for a bigger word and reach for a smaller fact.
Common questions
Who normally writes the obituary?
Usually the closest surviving family member, sometimes with the funeral director's help. Funeral homes will often draft one from a form you fill in, and some charge for it. You are always allowed to write it yourself, and you are always allowed to ask a friend who writes well to do it instead.
How much does it cost to publish?
Newspapers charge by the line or by the column inch, commonly $5–$15 per line, which puts a typical obituary somewhere between $200 and $600. Large metropolitan papers can run well over $1,000, and Sunday editions usually cost more. Funeral home websites and online memorial sites are generally free. Ask your funeral director for the exact rate card — they submit these every day.
What is the difference between a death notice and an obituary?
A death notice is a short paid announcement: name, age, date, service details. An obituary is longer and tells the story of a life. Confusingly, papers sell both, and the paid version of either is submitted the same way. A news obituary — the kind a paper writes itself about a notable person — is a different thing again and cannot be bought.
Do I have to say how they died?
No. There is no legal or editorial requirement to state a cause of death anywhere. "Passed away peacefully", "after a long illness", or simply the date are all complete and common.
What order do survivors go in?
Spouse or partner, then children with their spouses in parentheses, then grandchildren, then great-grandchildren, then parents and siblings. Those who died earlier are listed separately as "preceded in death by". Beyond that, families adapt the convention constantly — the order matters far less than making sure nobody is missing.
How long do I have to write it?
Most funeral homes want a draft within 24 to 48 hours so the paper can run it before the service. If you need more time, ask whether a short death notice can run first with a fuller obituary posted online afterward. Directors do this often.
Can I write it before someone dies?
Yes, and hospice social workers frequently suggest it. Writing while facts can still be checked with the person, or with relatives who are not yet exhausted, spares the family the hardest version of this task in the hardest week.